Seafood Sunday

In the past I've lamented about my love for Sundays, however, with the holidays and then moving into my new abode, I hadn't yet had the chance to thoroughly enjoy a relaxing Sunday in a really long time. Yesterday,I finally got to change that! 

After several weeks of winter, Baltimore got a brief glimpse of spring this weekend. It's possible that I love winter more than anyone you'll ever meet. I run faster in winter, I'm happier in winter (nothing makes me fussy like being hot and having sweat running down my face), and I truly love being cold. I lived in my last apartment for almost 3 years and never once turned on the heat. My new apartment is so warm without heat that Sheppie and I actually have to open a window at night to get the apartment to what we consider an appropriate sleeping temperature as we both enjoy a nip in the air and snuggling under blankets. Have I mentioned that Aussie is basically me in dog form? 

In writing about my love for cold, I was instantly reminded of one of the first times sister came sleep over at my first DC apartment. Unlike in my last home, my first DC casa only had a window unit air conditioner. Because it was a studio apartment, there also weren't a lot of options when placing furniture. As a result, the bed was placed in such a way that the window unit blew directly onto the bed. Delightful for people that like to be cold when they sleep, hell for poor sister. I shouldn't laugh, but this is one of my all time favorite pictures and I feel like it depicts so well how cold I like to keep a home:

Yes, she's created a fort out of the pillows to help block the air conditioner. In hindsight, I should have traded sides with her. 

I said all that to say, despite my affinity for winter, I truly enjoyed the warm weather this weekend. I spent Sunday doing so many of my favorite things. If I'd squeezed in time to paint it would've been perfection. 

Following a delicious brunch at a new neighborhood joint (whereby I had bacon for the first time in many years and realized how much I'd missed it), I finally got Aussie to check out the park in our new hood. I'd tried to get her to go once before when it was semi-nice out and there wasn't snow on the ground, but alas, strong-willed to the end, she got to the base of the park (it's on a hill) and decided she was done with adventure for the day (mind you the base of said park literally touches the parking lot of my apartment building, so it's not like I made her hike for days to get to it). Today I had the magic ingredient (other people in our midst). She's such a ham and loves the attention she gets when friends come over, so she wasn't about to give that up for the sake of not venturing into uncharted territory. And what do you know, she had a grand time! We've been fortunate enough to live by two huge parks in both of our city apartments together and I'm hopeful that our new park will provide the same solitude from city life that the last one did. 

Living puppy life. She's secretly excited to spend more days here once it gets permanently warm.

After shooting the breeze at the park and parting ways with friends, I found myself desiring to cook an inventive Sunday dinner. One of my favorite things about having a car again is being able to run to the grocery store and pick up something for dinner without it being a huge production. Plus, I can take Aussie with me on my journey. She loves car time almost as much as park time, so she's always up for accompanying me on the ride.

For some reason, I never buy fresh fish from the seafood counter. It's not something I really gravitate towards, but for the life of me I don't know why. I love seafood, it's what prevented me from becoming a full on vegetarian for all these years, and I'm a good enough cook that I could easily make some divine dishes with it. But alas, I haven't. As with so many things this year, I decided to change that on Sunday. I picked out a piece of fresh salmon and decided I was going to make magic in the kitchen. And I did....plus if points were being given out for this dish, I would've gotten bonus ones for using one of my two FOTYs as one of the focal points. It's possible I watch too many cooking shows.

I ended up enjoying this little impromptu meal so much that I think Sunday dinners may become a new staple around the casa. Stay turned. For now, a 30 minute meal Rachel Ray would be proud of.

Salmon with Roasted Sweet Potato, Asparagus, and Leeks

Ingredients

• Salmon
• 1 lemon, half sliced and juice from remaining half
• Asparagus, rinsed and stems trimmed
• 1 large leek, washed and sliced in half longways
• 1 medium sweet potato
• Fresh thyme
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

* I drew inspiration from all over for this recipe, so there aren't clear measurements yet again. Instead, I'm going to tell you basically what I did and then send you off to interpret in a way that works for you. Good luck, you can do it!

1. Rinse salmon, place in baking dish. Sprinkle with olive oil, fresh thyme, salt, and pepper to taste. Drizzle lemon juice from half a lemon and top with lemon slices before baking. 

2. Insert salmon dish into cold over and turn temperature to 400F. Bake for 25 minutes. Almost every recipe I looked up swore by this method for the most tender salmon results. They did not lie. 

3. Whilst salmon is baking, peal and slice sweet potato, leeks, and asparagus. Place sweet potato and asparagus into large bowl and lightly toss with olive oil. Lay out, single layer, onto baking sheet. Add sliced leeks to the fun (and lightly drizzle with olive oil). Sprinkle all with salt and pepper before baking.

4. Bake for 25 minutes or until leaks are slightly brown and others are at desired level of tenderness.

5. Plate. Eat. Enjoy.

Ramps Arrive

Admittedly, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to food. I have no formal (or informal for that matter) training in cooking and after fighting it for many years, I'm slowing starting to come around to the idea of cooking on a regular basis. Additionally, there are still many foods that have yet to grace my taste buds. I'm working to remedy this in part through my little FOTY (Food of the Year) program, but that is mostly reserved for the foods I peg as "more challenging" for me to develop a taste for. Other, less offensive foods if you will, have come into my life in recent years, but with little to no fan fare (ie: okra, brussels sprouts,tofu...the list is surprisingly extensive). I could not, however, let my first experience with ramps pass undocumented.


I first discovered ramps a few months ago while reading another food blog. The author was raving about how excited she was to have found ramps at the local farmer's market and couldn't wait to begin using them. Unfortunately, I was reading an old posting at the time and it was not yet ramp season in the real world. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, spring was alive and well (it's turned oddly cold in the District since), and ramps made an appearance at the Dupont farmer's market. I was thrilled. Unfortunately, the market is only open on Sundays and I've been out of town or preoccupied for the last couple, so this was my first weekend to go ramp shopping and, as with most things that the average person wouldn't find exciting, I was bursting with excitement and anticipation about my upcoming marketing expedition. 


Shepherd was equally excited about the day of cooking I had planned (not really, but I told myself she was and allowed her to stop at the dog park on the way back from the farmer's market as a reward for her good behavior) and accompanied me on my joyous expedition. I'd spent the past couple of days scouting recipes in my free time, hoping to find just the right dish for which to use ramps the first time. After much deliberation, I landed on pizza. As I've mentioned before, pizza is my happy food and since I hadn't made it in a while, I decided this was the perfect time for it to return to my life. Having never bought ramps before, but learning through my research that they are a foodie favorite, I was slightly nervous about supply and demand and worried we'd show up with no ramps to be found. Luckily, either I was so far behind the curve on this one that people are already over them (although I saw them in at least four dishes during dinner Saturday night, so I'm choosing to believe they're still in their hayday) or we were early enough that they hadn't all been snatched up, because we arrived to a table bursting will all the ramps I could ever want. I snatched up a bunch (hesitant to buy more than one the first go round least I end up hating them...although I was fairly certain that wouldn't be the case), as well as some other produce and then was on my way (mentally skipping with joy over my purchase). 

Part of my haul from the market...the radishes served as a cooking snack :)

So, as I mentioned, I chose pizza for my first ramp-based dish. I was drawn to this recipe because it also allowed me to use up some of the asparagus I'd purchased a few weeks back and tucked away in my freezer for safe keeping. To culminate this joyous occasion, I didn't have any dough pre-made, so Mr. Red got to join the party and breakout his dough hook for the first time! It was yet another delightful culinary experience.

Mr. Red getting some play time once again, this time breaking in the dough hook

White Cheese Pizza with Ramps (and other fun veggies)
[Adapted from The Kitchen Sink]


Ingredients

• 10 ramps (medium size)
• 8-10 asparagus spears
• 4-5 cherry tomatoes
• Baby spinach (1-2 cups)
• 1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper (to taste)
• Olive oil (for brushing the crust)
• Whole wheat crust or dough (I used this recipe again, but omitted the rosemary, although in hindsight that would've been good too)

Ready to bake

Preparation

1. Roll out pizza dough, brush with olive oil and cook at 450F for 8-10 minutes
2. While dough is cooking, wash and cut veggies as desired
3. After removing dough from oven, cover with cheese and veggies, season with salt and pepper, and cook  at 400 F for 8-10 minutes 

The ramps did not disappoint, I'm officially a fan!

Asparagus Arrives

One of my favorite things about spring is the plethora of fruits and veggies that come into season. During my beloved winter months, I often find myself longing for the fruits of summer, one brighter than the next. With the earlier than usual arrival of spring (or summer on some days) I was reminded just how much I missed this joyous food season during my family birthday party a few weekends ago. Since it was my day, I got to pick the menu and with hardly a second thought, requested the presence of a fruit tray. We had real food too because, unlike me, the rest of the family prefers to have a little more sustenance, but I would have been happy sitting undisturbed with my giant fruit tray. 


Nonetheless, after that weekend I was in full on fresh food mode. My mom let me take all the leftover fruit back to the District with me and I was able to begin my favorite summer tradition of bringing a small fruit salad to work as part of my lunch ensemble. To further excite me, I wandered into the Safeway by my office one day and was greeted by beautiful bunches of asparagus on sale for $1. There are two things I love most in food: bright, beautiful colors and a good deal. In that trip I found them both and was on cloud nine. 


Unfortunately, with so much going on last weekend, I almost missed getting to enjoy my wonderful find! It wasn't until Sunday evening, when I realized I was leaving town for a week soon, and only had two more days to eat or freeze all the fresh produce currently occupying my fridge, that I made time to cook up some of my asparagus. 


Over the years, as my love of asparagus has grown, I've come to appreciate it in a variety of ways: grilled, steamed, tossed in a salad cold. Oddly, what I realized I rarely do with it is bake it. I'm not sure why, but it was quick, painless (except when I burnt my hand on the 400 degree over rack), and did not disappoint.   

Roasted asparagus topped with a three cheese blend

In my continued effort to use veggies up...spinach pita pizza topped with the remains of my pasta sauce

Roasted Asparagus

1. Preheat oven to 400 F
2. Wash and trim desired amount of asparagus (yet another thing I love about asparagus...how easy the bottoms snap off)
3. Lay asparagus on baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes (depending on desired firmness)
5. Top with cheese, bake for an additional 1 minute or until cheese is melted
6. Enjoy!